a lot more vibrant with 8 small boxes of news below the main feature. also expanded online shopping pages.but i've never had a problem with how the old site looked. i only hated its search function to death. so i was keen to find out if they fixed it. whaddaya know? the search function is totally removed from the site.
what is available now is a search for items by name. click on the alphabet and a long, long list of product names appear. scroll through it and click on the item you want. perhaps it does diminish the frustration of having an 'item not found' message but it takes way too much time scanning tiny type. especially since i have to look up product names and links frequently. so this is a downgrade for me. the old search function suddenly seems good. as bad as it was it still gave me results 7 out of 10 tries.
go to ikea's new website and give it a whirl and let me know what you think.
Yea that search really used to be a drag and I always took a chance to complain about it while in contact with Ikea. Search for Billy and you got several pressreleases but only a few hits on the actual Billy series.
ReplyDeletenoew they just need to increase the number of products available for purchase online
ReplyDeleteIf you search with Anna on the main page, enter something simple that you know the name of already, it'll take you to the search results page. There you can enter a new search in the box in the middle.
ReplyDeleteI like the site because I'm about to go to an IKEA store I've never been to and they have a virtual store on-line (a map) so I saw that stuff is in basically the same place which is good.
ReplyDeleteI wish they still had a generic search engine, though. If you don't know the name of the thing you want you can't find it. For example, you can't enter 'wood box' and find anything. It made it a little harder. Other than that I like the site.
It looks ok, although I can't find any of the outdoor furniture.
ReplyDeleteHave you seen outdoor products anywhere in the new website?
ReplyDeleteWhere have the outdoor products gone???
ReplyDeleteI agree, the only problem I ever had with the site was the search function. though you can still access (seems like the exact same old search) by clicking on "Ask Anna!" and entering the name of what you're looking for.
ReplyDeleteannie and anon, yup, i can't find the outdoor furniture too. hopefully they will put it up again.
ReplyDeletekate, did try the Ask Anna feature. And yes, it is like the old search - not too reliable.
also if you click on site map at the bottom of the home page, and then scroll down there is a seach link. i think the new site is missing a lot of stuff, b/c i made a list of things i wanted to buy the next time i went there, and now none of it is on line, so im wondering if the site is a work in progress!?!?
ReplyDeleteMost likely the outdoor furniture section was removed since most of that stuff will be going on sale soon/is now discontinued for the season (in Canada, summer sale starts tomorrow).
ReplyDeleteIf you want to search for items, you can always just use google. If you wanted to search for the Billy product line, type "site:ikea.com billy" and you'll get plenty of results.
ReplyDeleteHey all, I work at IKEA in Australia and hopefully I can answer some of your questions from above. (BTW, love some of the hacks, good effforts and we hope to inspire you to do these things to make them more personal):
ReplyDelete* I hated the old site too, this new one has been 2 years in development, there's so much more on the way soon, so keep checking. They're rolling it out across all countries bit by bit, Australia is next month apparently.
* As far as number of products to order online, it's logistically hard to offer everything, not all countries offer home shopping, and the stores fun! So come in and browse around.
* Outdoor furniture - not all countries stock it, and it is a seasonal stock item (summer obviously), so keep an eye out leading up to your summer season. (Australia is December - Feb, but we've never stocked the outdoor range, not strong enough for our climate, but maybe soon...)
* And finally, this website is constantly a work in progress, all the web info is stored in our central servers in Älmhult, Sweden, so it's all updated in one place and translated.
Good times, thanks.
Barry
Hi Barry
ReplyDeletethanks for info. Good to know that ikea is 'listening'. :) am definitely looking forward to improvements on the ikea site.
I was under the bizzare impression that some ad/marketing agency did the web site... and it was driven internally but built elsewhere any thoughts answers
ReplyDeleteit was built by Huge. check out the press release for yourself at http://hugeinc.com/news/index.php?ID=70
ReplyDelete